Emma’s been seeing Darren. She thinks she’s in love.

Her boss thinks she’s in breach of contract.

The situation needs to be resolved.

Welcome to the modern workplace - where HR knows everything, privacy is an illusion, and every conversation begins with the same unnervingly cheerful phrase: “Come in, sit down, how are things?”

Mike Bartlett’s razor-sharp dark comedy Contractions thrusts us into a world where personal freedoms shrink as corporate control expands. What begins as a routine meeting between Emma and her Manager quickly spirals into an escalating series of interrogations.

First performed at London’s Royal Court Theatre in 2008 - Contractions has earned its reputation as one of Bartlett’s most biting and provocative works. Critics have hailed it as “brutally entertaining… ferociously funny while being absolutely appalling” (Daily Telegraph) and “grotesquely funny – and it chills to the bone” (The Times).

Both an allegory and a black comedy, the play skewers workplace surveillance, the power structures of corporate culture, and the insidious ways employers lay claim to employees’ lives.

Directed by Daniel Stoddart, and starring two of Newcastle’s most compelling performers - Katie Blaxland (Mary Poppins, Jersey Boys) and Megan Kennedy (Every Second, Banging Denmark) - in a gripping, pressure-cooker two-hander that is as hilarious as it is horrifying.

Step inside the meeting room at Fern Street Studios for Four shows only.

Contact the host of The Very Popular Theatre Company presents CONTRACTIONS by Mike Bartlett

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